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Friday, November 11, 2016

Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) is a set of 4 virtual machines delivered as an appliance.

Active directory domain controller

Holds Service pointers, Internal DNS used by CCE, Internal Certificates. This active directory do not share schema with your internal domains, it is separate and used by CCE only.

Skype for Business Edge Server

The Edge server is a multihomed virtual machine that talks to the Internet on "the outside" and it must be able to use external public DNS from the Internet.

Skype for Business Mediation Server

Terminates SIP trunks to/from the outside world (the SBC) and transcodes media.

Skype for Business Central Management Store

Holds information on the Topology used by Mediation and Edge.

CCE can be seen as a gateway between Office 365 and your own PSTN connection. Please note that CCE does not contain a Skype for Business Registrar, i.e. it is not possible to home users in CCE.

The presentation continued with PowerShell demos on how to configure Office 365 for CCE, how to configure a user for PSTN access, how to configure a Sonus SBC with integrated CCE, number manipulation and mulitsite configuration.

Why should we use an Session Border Controller (SBC) together with CCE?

With a SBC we can connect multiple trunks to a single instance of CCE and we can also handle analog devices such as fax machines. We can do additional transcoding, SIP message manipulation, TLS connections, DTMF, reduce latency and DDoS protection just to name a few advantages. An SBC will also allow us to use an existing infrastructure (trunks) so that we can migrate smoothly and retain a carrier contract.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

The presentation started with a demo of the Smartsheet integration with presence, conversations and meetings.

Next was Skype for Salesforce where Skype is built into the Salesforce GUI / Webpage featuring videocalling in Edge without a plugin with the call and editing in Salesfore happening in the same window.

Embedded video calling in Google Chrome using the WebRTC implementation in Chrome were demoed, using a "media provider" built into the Chrome browser, just as in Edge.

Web and Chat is cool, but voice still accounts for more than 60% of the traffic for most customer service organizations. Hence, "Trusted applications" in the cloud will be supported by a coming "Trusted applications API", which was demoed together with the WebSDK in the session. A demo featured an anonymous user in a web chat session with an agent who could bring in a second agent / expert and a consumer Skype healthcare bot via the Bot Framework. The demo also featured a PSTN call into a trusted application via Office 365 PSTN calling with DTMF signalling, basic IVR and agent routing.

UCMA will probably not be ported to the cloud, but WebRTC is on the roadmap for Skype for business (starting with Online)

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

At an event in New York and online Microsoft announced Microsoft teams today. Microsoft Teams Builds on Office 365 and adds a chat-based workspace to Office 365.

Microsoft Teams - a part of the Office 365 ecosystem

Microsoft Teams is threaded persistant chats or conversations where the Activity view can be seen as the "inbox" in Teams. A Team "channel" can be seen as the digital equivalent of an ad-hoc meeting in a normal Office environment. Moving images, emojis, stickers, or GIFs, can easily be pasted into team conversations. Microsoft Teams builds on Office 365 groups, and has built-in access to PowerBI, Graph, SharePoint, OneNote, and Skype for Business. A "team" is simply a group of people organized around a common goal, and a sharepoint site is automatically created for each new Team that is created in Microsoft Teams.

Bots are included in Microsoft Teams from start. T-bot can answer questions about the MicorosftTeams product, like: How do I create a channel? Who-bot can answer questions about people. Polly is a poll / voting bot can be used in conversations. Currently some 85 bots are available.

In general, a web browser is all you need to access Microsoft Teams and mobile clients are available as well.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

SOF is a framework, a set of practical application / guidance for a successful end-to-end deployment of Skype for business.SOF is a living framework. In July 2016, the first version was released, it was accompanied by 17 training sessions. In September 2016 right before Ignite a second major update were done, this including cloud migration and 11 new additional training sessions. Future minor and major updates will come for the framework.

"The shift to cloud requires a rethinking of how to Plan, Deliver, and Operate Skype for business Online." - Things we "used to do" might not work so well any more.

SOF is focused on cloud, but the ideas and concepts can be used for on-prem installations as well.

Between the release of the on-prem Lync 2013 to Skype for business Server 2015 a long time passed (like 2 years+) The cloud is changing and adding features at a higher pace.

Technet already contains all the documentation needed to do a cloud migration, technically, so why do we need SOF?Technet answers how to move an account from on-prem to the cloud. SOF gives the guidance on how to define which users should be moved first, which users should stay on-prem and how do we do the migration in an orderly fashion.

SOF defines what "we" (Skype for business nerds I guess...) mean when we use various terms. E.g. what is a network assessment - it can have different meaning to different people - with SOF we can define what we mean.

A Persona Analysis helps us understand the communication needs of our users, and how these needs will change. "I have a PBX that does 10 things, I want the new system to do these 10 things." - Well, then stay with the old system, but if you want to expand and enhance communications - here's what you can do... Mobile users / remote workers / home users, these are good candidates to move to the cloud. Call center users might not be a good fit to move to the cloud, yet.

Are we "UC ready"? Skype for business online is not an instant messaging / chat system, it is not a conferencing solution, it is not a PBX - it is all these things working together and it is probably different from what is used in the organization today.

The network assessment guidance now contains information about Express Route. Express Route is one of the tools in our toolbox - the assessment will tell us if we should use it or not.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

What does it take to run high-quality real-time communications service globally?
Of course, a cloud-based communications platform, but much more than so, we need to know how to plan, deliver and operate such a service. When we say "communications" it means more than just instant messaging and presence. It means voice communication and voice conferencing, with users located in different countries or regions of the world.

The difference between a PBX and cloud-based communications system is as vast as comparing a private well to our modern-day water supply system. So, we have an external network and local components (in-house plumbing) and all these components must work well (no pun intended) for our service to work.

There are 3 phases with 4 stages in every phase, and each stage is a defined set of activities that are critical for your success. For each actvity there are assets and/or tools to help you with that specific activity.

SOF is mainly designed for Skype for business online but it can also be leveraged for on-prem installations. Activities such as the network assement, the envisioning workshop and others are common no matter if Skype for business online or on-prem is used.

The Skype
for business client logs to the .uccapilog and .etl logs and the the
Application log in event viewer.

New
features in the Desktop client

Video based
screen sharing (VbSS)

Previously
all screen sharing was done with the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) which is
limited to a maximum of 8 frames per second and it runs over TCP. VbSS can go
up to 30 frames per second and can use the quicker "fire-and-forget"
protocol UDP. VbSS will also give a noticable faster call setup or start of the
screen sharing in an existing session. There is no visual indication in the
client to indicate if RDP or VbSS is being used for screen sharing, therefore
we need to examine the logs to see if it
works properly or not. Some sort of graphical indication and/or information about which
codec is being used might come in future releases of the client, (please go to www.skypefeedback.com to vote for this idea if you like it.) In the
SDP, RDP screen sharing is announced as

m=applicationsharing
53111 TCP/RTP/SAVP 127

and VbSS as

m=video
50054 RTP/SAVP 123 123

both media
types are offered and accepted in the SIP dialog due to fallback reasons. If
one of the clients in a meeting do not support VbSS RDP will be used as a
fallback and if you would like to force the meeting to use RDP rather than
VbSS, turn on recording. After a meeting has changed from VbSS to RDP it will
not fallback to VbSS even if circumstances change.

Also,
please note that VbSS is using UDP so make sure to open your firewalls when
enabling this feature, more information about this is available in the article:
Video based Screen Sharing for Skype for Business Server 2015. Audio is not
supported in VbSS, but a workaround might be to use the Virtual Audio Cable
software, and VbSS will not be in the RTM version of the Skype for business for
Mac client, but will come in a later update.

Offline
Messaging

Offline
Messaging uses Exchange Web Service (EWS), Exchange Server and the message
history spooler so it works even with a Lync 2010 server. EnableIMArchiving in
the client policy must be enabled for Offline Messaging to work.

PSTN
dialing and PSTN conferencing issues

PSTN
conferencing in Office 365 is a quite complex animal.

In Office
365 there is a user forest and a "PSTN resources" forest. This means
that a PSTN conference is two cascaded conferences in two separate MCUs.
Without dynamic conference IDs there is an issue with these two conferences not
getting connected. This issue is called a bar-belling failure (not "disappointing"
as the guy sitting in front of me in the audience suggested). The symptom for
the users are that VoIP users can hear VoIP users and PSTN users can hear PSTN
users, only. Also, the users might see an "Uninvited guest" in the
meeting. There are two ways of avoiding this to happen. Instruct your users to
use the "End meeting" function when leaving a meeting (but how well
is that going to work out?) Or contact support and ask them to enable your
tenant for dynamic conference IDs (and this is the real fix which is available
since September 1st, 2016.) Eventually all tenants will be fixed and this issue
should be a thing of the past.

In a Skype
for business meeting it is possible to actually “End a meeting”

Skype for
business for Mac

The
presentation continued with logs in the Mac client. All you need to know
about the old Lync for Mac 2011 client is summarized in this article: Removing Lync for Mac2011 :-)

The Mac
client has a dependency on the Certificate CRL - if a location to the CRL is
included in the certificate it must be accessible by the Mac computer. That is
accessible via http(s) and not LDAP. Also, be aware that a Windows CA does not
have an http(s) address to the CRL published by default, LDAP only.

Snooper
7.0.1168.1 will be released together with the Mac client, and this version can
open and parse Skype for business for Mac client logs.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Back in 2012 I did a test of the Lync Busylight product, and finally it is time for a follow up. I have now received the new redesigned version of the Busylight and also the Kuandobox hardware.

As you probably know the Busylight will be green, yellow or red depending on the status of your Skype for business client. The Kunandobox however, will feed presence status to the client depending of the state of another PBX telephone. So, I decided to combine the two, and here is the result.

Tunneling presence from the PBX phone into my Skype for business client which in turn feeds the busylight next to the phone I have created a nice little "Unified Presence" scenario where people online and people in my room will know when I am busy on the PBX phone or in Skype for business.

Notice the 4 second delay after the handset is put back in place - this is "clerical time" that is settable through the Busylight GUI which resides as a little icon in the taskbar.

The integration with Outlook is better with join straight from the Outlook calendar, and access to the calendar from Skype for business. To get presence in Outlook is being worked on.

It is possible to upload and present a Power point file with the Office Web Apps server in a meeting.

The integration with the phone hardware / OS is improved when it comes to contacts and dialing. Before an ongoing Skype for business call or meeting were cut in the event of an incoming native (PSTN) call. This is now fixed. When in a Skype for business call, the user will get an option to answer or ignore the PSTN call; even send to voicemail and hold the current call is there. This will be available soon for iOS 10 devices.

The join button in Outlook, available now.

Another one of the issues with putting a phone in a phone is solved.

The login experience is improved with some more help texts at the login screen. If the username is entered in an incorrect format, the application will let you know immediately and not wait for you to enter the password and then fail the login.

The join experience is better with the application understanding where the meeting is being hosted, in your system or in a federated one.

Push notifications with the possibility to communicate messages to the lock screen, will be available in Office 365 first and then come to the on-prem software. Also, push notifications will show up even if you have not actually used the app for a long time. Presence during meetings have been inconsistent in the past but should now work better with push notifications in place. There is tenant level and user level settings to turn push notifications on or off. Sometimes when logging in to the mobile client old toasts appear from hours ago, and this is also fixed with push notifications.
15-20% less battery is consumed now after improvements, compared to earlier.
Transcription and translation of meetings will be in the mobile clients.
Siri support through Apple's Sirikit integration is coming.

Video based Screen Sharing (VbSS) will improve the meeting experience on mobile clients. With Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sharing maybe 3-4 Frames Per Second (FPS) could be reached over TCP. With VbSS 15 FPS can be reached over UDP, making the sharing run much smoother. In reality a VbSS session will use more bandwidth than the RDP version (so there is a fallback mechanism) but counted frame-by-frame VbSS is actually using less bandwidth than RDP. So, the clients will try to optimize the viewing experience depending on the network conditions.

It is possible to use Smart cards with the certificate based authentication.

There is Single Sign on support on the mobile, e.g. sign in to outlook and this authentication will be valid in Skype for business, Sharepoint, etc.

Intune adds manageability to mobile devices, for example force the version of iOS to be used or disable screen capture. (now it is possible to take a photo of a phone with another phone - be careful out there...)

Then the session went on with a nice demo, featuring: Creating a meeting in Outlook, joining a meeting from the outlook calendar, answering (joining meeting) from the lock screen, presenting content from iCloud or OneDrive, an incoming PSTN call during meeting were declined.

A question about security and the local cache was answered with Intune that can assign a password for opening the Skype for business client. Screen sharing from the mobile client is currently not possible. Persistent chat, Conversations, Call back, VbSS, Multi Factor Authentication, sending SMS from contact cards and calling home to Sweden over a bad WiFi network were discussed.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Lync for Mac were not good; the Skype for business on Mac client is a new start.

A team of developers in Stockholm created the client, they have previously built the iOS Skype for business client. No code from Lync for Mac were used in the process, but it shares the same stack as the iOS and Android mobile apps. The client will work with Lync Server 2013 CU1 (UCWA 1.0) but even better with Skype for business Server 2015 (UCWA 2.0). Support for meetings is there, and the chat supports both a single or multiple windows.

Sort by availability (status) in the contacts view is coming after the General Availability release.

The video view is automatically adjusting to the number of participants in the meeting, with 2, 3 or 4 video feeds visible. Support for QoS, panoramic video and video based screen sharing is coming in later releases. Support for Persistent chat is not in the roadmap. New features will continue to be previewed using MAU (Microsoft Auto Update) even post General Availability.

Internal clients will use lyncdiscoverinternal and connect straight to the pool, and not hair-pin the connection over the reverse proxy.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Since we are reading from left to right it was interesting to see the order in this slide, compared to the same slide a couple years back. Cloud PBX is included in the Office 365 E5 license and can be added to the E3 or E1 licenses. Minutes in the calling plan are pooled by tenant.

Demo of assigning a number to a user in "Cloud PBX" for Skype for business Online.
This service is now available in the US, UK and Puerto Rico, Spain and France is on the way, unfortunately not available in Sweden just yet. Nothing can be said about in which countries this feature will be available next, or when, but the service will expand. (For France and Spain - sign up at www.skypepreview.com) In the UK about 1 million minutes of calling have been done so far.

Hosted voicemail is included in Cloud PBX, and even Exchange 2013 on-prem is supported. Voicemail transcription, busy-on-busy, Private line and Cloud Connected Appliance are features being looked at in the roadmap for Cloud PBX.

If you have an on-prem pool - go hybrid. If you do not have an on-prem pool - use the Cloud Connector Edition.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

It is nice to work with a verb - "Skype" - anywhere you go in the world people have a story or experience about Skype.

So far some 3 trillion (that is 3000000000000) minutes of video calls have been consumed in Skype.

Among many customers Accenture is running Skype for business globally for 418000 active users via 4 data centers.

Delanda Coleman - Mac Client

The Mac client were demoed with a tabbed conversations view a black rather than blue border in the meetings view and without any distracting buttons or controls in the video view (other clients will probably follow.)

Calling from a Mac client to an iOS 10 device using the Call Kit integration in iOS 10 was demoed, e.g. answer the call from the lock screen. Support for Siri-assisted calling with Skype for business is coming in a future release, and it looks like the mobile phone is becoming the main phone for people even outside of Sweden.

Another key message in this part were: Skype for business loves Apple!

Ilya Bukshteyn - Project Rigel - Skype Room Systems

(note the name - Skype Room Systems - not Skype for business Room Systems)

One touch join experience were demoed on a Logitech smart dock device. These new devices from Logitech, Crestron and Polycom are all based on Surface 4 Pro with Windows 10 which means you can deploy these devices with the regular Windows 10 deployment tools you already have in place. The pricing of these devices will start from 2000 USD. If you walk into a meeting room, into an ongoing meeting, you can connect your computer to the device, project your screen, and the device will automatically share your screen into the meeting. Polycom announced the Real Connect Service (running in Azure) for Office 365 which allows Polycom devices to join video calls in Skype for business Online. A public preview will be available later this year.

The intelligent cloud

Natural language requires a lot of work and a lot of data to analyze to drive it forward. A demo of connecting to the simultaneous ongoing Office 365 keynote, transcribing it into English and then translating it into Spanish, Chinese and Klingon. A preview will be available in the Skype for business meeting broadcast feature next quarter, featuring some 50 languages, with more languages to be added later. So now you can consume your meeting on your favorite device, at any time and in your language.

Office 365 hyper-scale

38% of all global international calling goes through the Skype network which is now part of Office 365.

PSTN conferencing in Office 365 is available in 90 countries and some 400+ cities.

PSTN calling is available in the US, UK and Puerto Rico, with France & Spain coming soon.

Regionally hosted meetings, the ability to decide in which datacenter you meeting is going to be hosted, is coming in the next few months.

Ben Canning - Cloud voice experience

A demo of the Office 365 admin center assigning French and Spanish numbers to users and creating an auto-attendant and call queues, and a powershell version of it as well.

Also, a lot of other good news and updates big and small were announced, like how to actually use the new Video based Screen Sharing. That transcription and translation will be available in the Skype Meeting Broadcast feature by the end of 2016. PSTN Calling in Skype for business Online in Office 365 is expanding with France and Spain on the way. Keep an eye on this article for future Changes: Countries and regions that are supported for Skype for Business Online PSTN Services

For more info on the coming Skype for Business for Mac client take a look at John A Cook's excellent summary. Also, a new version 7.0.1168.1 of the Snooper tool is coming soon with the release of the Mac client and with this version it is possible to open Mac logs as well. We also saw some cool developer demos like a webpage with chat, audio and video in Edge with Skype for business, and without any plugins required.

It was nice to quickly shake hands with

Corporate Vice President, Gurdeep Singh Pall

In the expo area some really cool "robots" or video-enabled-vaccumcleaner-devices were constantly roaming around. They are actually named Beams and run by the company EventPresence.

My friend Fredrik Nilsson from Tyresö in Sweden who could not physically come to Ignite could still mingle with all the attendees and exhibitors on the expo floor. He could also use the various photo booths and even attend a few sessions by simply steering the Beam remotely. I need to get me one of these and I will never have to fly again, so cool!

Fredrik roaming the floors of Ignite 2016.

I also purchased the great book Skype for Business Unleashed and got it signed by many of the authors and contributors like Jamie Stark, Pat Richard, Rui Maximo, Phil Sharp, Ståle Hansen and Tom Arbuthnot.

I still like physical heavy books you can hold in your hands...

It was fun to catch up with Callahan, all MCTs working the Hands-on-Labs, Adnan Hendricks, Johan Dahlbom, Johan Delimon, Sami Laiho, Knowledge Factory (hey! Thanks for the Svenskfest!), the VM-data crew, Pexip, PointSharp and The Krewe of course!

Also, Matt Landis, Josh Blalock and Mark Vale, who all have written great summaries of Ignite:

Last but not least Tom Arbuthnot created a fantastic summary of all Skype for business sessions at Ignite, which I used daily at the Conference. The list is quite long but I will make another try to go through and summarize all of the sessions on my blog, hopefully I'm done before Ignite 2017, here it is:

BRK2068 Turn your users into raving fans of Skype

BRK3061 Ready your network for Skype for Business Online

BRK3271 Dive into Project Rigel and the Skype for Business Meeting Device Portfolio

BRK2072 Hear our Skype story: deploying at Accenture

BRK2076 Migrate to the cloud – Skype for Business Online

BRK3300 Get to know Skype for Business Meetings: your complete meeting solution